Devices for obtaining such accurate registration are known as autographic registers for continuous business form sets upon which autographic impressions are placed and one such autographic register is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,366,745. Known devices of this kind include box-like, rigid housings made of metal, plastic or the like wherein a supply of continuous business form sets is placed upon which information is to be later recorded autographically. The supply of continuous form sets is placed in the housing as a zig-zag folded stackk. The business form set upon which is desired to make an autographic record is drawn over a plate fixed in the housing. This plate acts as a writing surface and is arranged beneath a window in an opening in the housing cover.
After an autographic record is entered on the individual form set, the form set can be moved away from the recording location on the writing plate by means of a lever arrangement and into a zig-zag folded stack in a storage compartment of the housing.
The individual business form sets generally include an original record sheet and one or more copies lying beneath the original sheet whereby absolute registration accuracy of the original sheet and the copies is required when making the handwritten records and coies thereof. For known devices, the registration accuracy when making the handwritten record and when moving form sets is assured by using means such as pin wheels which engage margin guide holes or registration holes lying transverse to the direction of movement. This requires not only an additional manufacturing effort, but also requires a paper surface space on the form sets which cannot be used for printing nor for making a business record entry.
In addition, the box-like housing renders the known devices difficult to handle and inconvenient to work with when loading and removing the continuous form sets. Also, the necessary mechanical transport mechanisms are subject to failure.
This is especially the case when continuous form sets are used which have undergone changes as a consequence of long or improper storage owing to the hygroscopic characteristics and dimensional stability of the paper. These disadvantages and the relatively large weight of the known devices prevented their broad use by traveling sales personnel because such devices could be taken along on business trips only with great difficulty or not at all.
The generally known continuous business form sets widely used for machine-made records are available as a zig-zag folded stack and are stored again in a zig-zag folded stack after the machine record has been made. Because of the above disadvantages, these form sets were not used to any significant extent where the same had to be used for recording information entirely or only partially by hand as, for example, in commercial sales by traveling salesman.
Accordingly, in many areas, the continuous business form sets are written of necessity with machine writing devices although a handwritten record would be more expeditious.